By Gretchen Berg

At first, in my neighborhood, it was Disney.
Swiss Family Robinson made us build
sprawling tree forts and rip red caps apart
to stuff into dirt clod grenades.
We thought The Parent Trap twins
looked fake, but it was still cool
when they poured honey on the bad
girlfriend’s feet during the camping trip.
We discovered The Absent–Minded Professor
recipe for flubber but my dad saw us
carrying a tire, matches and a gas can
into the woods and stopped us.

Pretty soon the movies weren’t just kid movies.
The dad in To Kill a Mockingbird looked like
my dad, there were a lot of bad white grown–ups
except not the crazy guy next door, and Scout
wore a ham costume. Girls screamed all through
A Hard Day s Night, Joan Crawford and her ax
scared me forever, and I sat in the second row
all the way to the right for a James Bond
triple feature. Some kids didn’t get to see Tom Jones
because eating chicken and oysters was so sexy.
A Man and a Woman was cool and confusing.
We listened to the record and pretended to smoke.

Lulu sang To Sir with Love on a 45,
my brother pounded out Exodus on the piano,
and we knew the words to The Sound of Silence
before Dustin Hoffman did. I saw Dr. Zhivago
three times. He was completely cute
and completely good, but his wife
was rich and pathetic so once Lara shot
Rod Steiger we all knew what would happen.

Lara’s Theme was the most beautiful music
in the world. I’d listen and picture snow,
and revolution and Omar Sharif.
But mostly I pictured Julie Christie.

By Gretchen Berg

When dizzy Jimmy Stewart chases
creepy Kim Novak up the tower,
it seems like this confusing movie might

finally end, but no, it keeps getting all explained.
Vertigo is the only loser in the Hitchcock festival
my dad takes me to. The rest are perfect:

Margaret Rutherford disappears off the train
in the Alps, everybody’s head goes back and forth
in unison at the tennis match except for

the bad guy who keeps looking straight ahead,
Grace Kelly’s shoulders glow, Mt. Rushmore
looks as fake as the real Mt. Rushmore looks,

and Tippi Hedren lies picked to death on the couch
while we drink Cokes and eat popcorn.
Happy. Happy. Happy.

By Steve Luttrell

Pieces on a square board.
Each one symbolic
in its form.
It’s a game
and at the same time
not a game.
Each move a serious decision,
of grave consequence.
As life hangs in the balance
when you’re playing
with death.
One wrong move and
MATE!
Game over!

By Steve Luttrell

Oh, the horror!
the horror of it!
an actress seething sex appeal.
This is a poem
for Barbara Steele,
a dark erotic beauty
enigmatic and seductive
and pale to the point of ghostly.
Her eyes, a dark invitation
to a deep and dangerous place
of curses and castles
and corpses kept in crypts.
How ironic that this
“Queen of Screams”
would come to wed
a man named Poe.